March Madness 2013: Iona Gaels are in the NCAA Tournament

We’ll be doing NCAA Tournament profiles for all automatic bid conference winners leading into the NCAA Tournament. See below for previous team profiles.

Conference/Record: MAAC (20-13)

Location:New Rochelle, NY

Famous Alums/Attendees: Famous alumni includes St. Louis Cardinals closer Jason Motte, NBA Player/Coach Richie Guerin, and John Gilchrist (“Little Mikey” from Life cereal ads).

Social Media:The official twitter account for the Iona Gaels is @ICGaels.

Random Fun Fact: Iona College’s hometown – New Rochelle, NY – is no stranger to being in the basketball spotlight. Last week, New Rochelle High school Khalil Edney hit the most insane buzzer-beater you’ll ever see to give the school a state championship.

Tournament History/Most Recent: This will be the Gaels 10th apperance in the NCAA Tournament. They earned an at-large bid last year, and lost to BYU (after leading by 15 at the half) in the Opening Round game in Dayton last year.

Good Wins/Bad Losses: In addition to beating BCS-conference teams Georgia (on the road) and Wake Forest (neutral site), Iona’s best win was a season-opening home win over Denver. There’s no shortage of bad losses on their resume, but a 105-104 2OT loss to Marist surely sticks out.

Notable Player(s): Senior Lamont Jones is second in the nation in scoring at 23.3 ppg. A former big-time recruit – Jones graduated from Oak Hill Academy in 2009 and attended the University of Arizona before transferring back home to New York.

Outlook/Seed: Iona is projected to be a 14-seed. This is an experienced team – all five starters experienced a brutal defeat in Dayton as an at-large team last year. They are talented and can be a real threat to whatever major-conference team they get matched up with.